That Was Now, This Is Then by Michael Z. Williamson

Author:Michael Z. Williamson [Williamson, Michael Z.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Science Fiction, General
ISBN: 9781982125769
Google: aHkxzgEACAAJ
Publisher: Baen
Published: 2021-12-07T05:00:00+00:00

Kate walked across to the lab awning, munching a bagel with cream cheese and ham. The field rations were very good here, and it tasted fresh. She wasn’t sure if this had been packaged, reconstituted, or converted, but it was good.

There was a stack of samples to run basics on—personnel samples of various bodily exams, some dirt, some clothing, especially footgear. Disgusting, but informative. She finished the sandwich in two bites to get that out of the way before work.

Raven was already processing something, with charts on screen.

Kate paused for a moment, then said, “That isn’t the same screen as yesterday.”

Raven replied, “I needed different processing, so I adapted it.”

“Did you cha—”

She stopped as the woman glared at her.

Right. Don’t be overheard. On the other hand, how were the Bykos going to miss the fact that the twenty-first-century woman had cracked and reprogrammed some of their software? They might regard it as hostile.

Kate thought furiously if she should order it to stop, or look aside. She certainly was not going to mention it to the Bykos, either way.

They were trying for as much information as possible. If Raven could get it this way, great. There was a risk in anything. If she was good enough to crack their software, she might be good enough to hide it, though that seemed awfully smug and pretentious.

Instead she said, “Is it working better for you now?”

“It is so far.”

“Good. We’ll process a lot of data this way. I hope our hosts will be happy as well.”

Shug came over with some specimen jars, and pointed at the southwest corner.

“From there,” he said.

Raven replied, “Thank you very much, Shug. Now I need the same thing from down at the bottom ward.” She pointed.

He nodded and took more containers. He walked off with them.

Kate confirmed, “You’ve got him running sample errands?”

“Yes, he wants to help and he’s detail oriented, although he has no idea what I’m doing here.”

That was actually a plus. The kid was illiterate and couldn’t blow cover.

She acknowledged with, “I’m glad he’s able to help and feel useful.”

While they handled samples and data, she kept a random eye on the goings-on.

The visiting local girls seemed nice enough, polite enough. Was that best behavior as guests, or impressed by magic equipment and weapons? That might be something to follow up on. She made a note.

Arnet and Sergeant Caswell fed them, and there was the usual after-meal booze, and then a bit of music. Oglesby came over with more food and drink for them.

He said, “We’re giving them some space.”

Kate said, “Good,” at exactly the same moment as Raven. She was amused. Raven didn’t appear to notice. She was actually working both screens at once, samples on the right, some sort of Byko program in their screwy alphabet on the left.

She checked her own sample processes. They were going as planned.

There was nothing else to test at present. The Byko gear took a lot of the fussy detail and chemistry out of it. They didn’t even have to wait for results.

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